Courses

Here are descriptions for courses I am currently teaching or have taught in the past. Fellow instructors -- feel free to reach out if you’d like a copy of a syllabus or other materials! Students -- if you have a question about a course or want to know when it might be taught in the future, please get in touch.

 
 

Introduction to Philosophy

In this course we will focus on developing the basic skills of philosophical thinking, writing, reading, and conversation. These methods can be applied to a very wide range of important questions in human life. In our course, we’ll develop these skills by thinking, reading, writing, and talking about some of the following questions:

  • What makes a life a good life?

  • What makes certain actions right, or wrong?

  • What makes a person the same person over time?

  • What, if anything, is special about “scientific” ways of knowing? Are there “empirical” (observation or experience-based) ways of coming to know things that are not science, and if so, what’s the difference?

Recently in my introductory courses, I have focused on helping students write public-facing philosophy: first-person essays and arguments using philosophical methods to talk about an issue or question that matters to you, the author, and that you think others should consider more carefully. After practicing philosophical ways of thinking about these questions, you will be able to apply the philosophical training you have received in any context you choose – whether that’s in subsequent philosophy classes, in your other courses, or in the “real world” of your daily life.

Upper-level courses

Ethical Theories

Ethical theories usually try to do two things. First, they give a comprehensive explanation of what makes actions right and wrong. Second, they usually give some sort of guide to deliberation: a reliable method for reaching the morally right decision, and acting on it. In this course, we will look closely at several ethical theories in the Western tradition, focusing mainly on the following schools of thought: Aristotelian, Humean, Utilitarian, and Kantian. Our emphasis will be on philosophical methods and on rigorous, critical reading of texts. At the same time, with the help of a series of film screenings, we will ask whether (and how) each type of theory can answer the basic questions of ethics for us, here and now.

Environmental Ethics

*I don’t teach Environmental Philosophy or Environmental Ethics regularly at UTK, but this is the description for the course that I teach when I do teach it!An ethic is a code or a set of ideals governing human conduct. So an environmental ethic is basically a code or set of ideals governing how humans must conduct themselves in relation to the environment. That means that in environmental ethics, we have to think not only about ethics, but also about our theory of nature (how the natural world it is structured, what it is made of, what rules and laws govern it, how it came to be, and so on). After all, the environmental ethic you live by will depend a lot on the theory of nature you accept. The course will be divided into roughly two parts. First, we will look at the historical roots of the currently-dominant Western theory of nature, and relate it to the environmental ethic it supports. Then we will consider a series of alternative environmental ethics, keeping in mind the theories of nature behind each of them.

Graduate and Advanced Undergrad Courses

Seminar: History of the Idea of Nature

What is “nature” and what is humanity’s place in nature? What does it mean for something to be “natural”? Natural as opposed to what — unnatural, supernatural, artificial? In this course we’ll look at one particular conceptualization of “nature”, considering its historical origins and development, its intrinsic merits, and its role in the intellectual history of political, ethical, and environmental American philosophy and policy.

... That, of course, is an impossible task for one semester, let alone for one lifelong scholarly quest. Be forewarned that we will not be comprehensive in tracing the historical genesis and influence of the ideas to be discussed. And we will shift back and forth between focusing on understanding the history of the ideas in question (their origins, their development, their influence upon one another, etc.), and simply considering the philosophical merits of the views we are discussing. There are many pertinent texts we will not read in a given semester, all of which we could read (in the sense that they're relevant and valuable sources). I will often include recommended further readings in the modules each week, and I invite you to browse through these and raise for further possible group discussion any readings that appeal to you. I also invite you to suggest further readings that you hear of, or have read, or want to read, but which may not appear on my list. 

Proseminar: Neo-Aristotelian Ethics

This seminar will focus on 20th and 21st century Aristotelian ethics, broadly construed to include not only “virtue ethics”, but also debates about character, the structure and purpose of practical reason, the fact-value distinction, philosophical methods in value theory, and other areas of normative ethics and value theory influenced by the iconoclastic “neo-Aristotelian” philosophers of the 20th century. We’ll consider not just what the neo-Aristotelians’ views were and are, but also the impact and significance of their views in the historical context of 20th-century ethics and metaethics. We’ll consider the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, Christine Swanton, Julia Annas, Gavin Lawrence, Warren Quinn, John McDowell, John Doris, and John Hacker-Wright, among others. We'll proceed roughly chronologically, beginning with Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" and concluding with a brief survey of some contemporary work including Christine Swanton’s less-Aristotelian Target-Centred Virtue Ethics.

Seminar: Practical Reasoning in Aristotle and Hume

What is the connection between practical rationality, and the morality of one’s actions? The answer to this question depends on what practical rationality is. Very broadly speaking, “practical reasoning”, or deliberation, is the human process of figuring out what to do. But philosophers disagree about what practical reasoning is like, and what its purpose is in human life. Some philosophers (Aristotle and Kant, for example) argue that one is not being fully (practically) rational unless one is doing the morally right thing. Others (Hume, most conspicuously) believe that one can be rational without being moral, and vice versa. Practical reasoning in the (neo-)Humean view is instrumental: it is a tool for figuring out how to do what we want to do, regardless of whether what we want to do is good, bad, or indifferent. In the neo-Kantian and neo-Aristotelian view, instrumental rationality is only one part of full practical rationality; to be practically rational one must also choose sound or wise ends.

In this class, we will examine conceptions of practical reason in the work of Hume, Aristotle, and several neo-Aristotelian and neo-Humean philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will attend especially to the question of what, if anything, practical rationality has to do with moral goodness or wisdom. We will also consider some common strengths of Aristotelian and Humean views, and (time permitting) some challenges to both.

Seminar: Hierarchy and Alternatives

“Analytic” philosophy traces its own intellectual history back through the empiricism and rationalism of modern Western European philosophy, through medieval Western European Christian philosophy (and especially its appropriations of Aristotle’s thought), and back to (some of) the ancient Greeks. You can see this self-conception reflected in the standard course requirements for majors and graduate programs in any analytic philosophy department in the world.

In this course we will first briefly establish, and then explore alternatives to, one feature of this thought system that has been especially relevant to ethical theory: namely, its anthropocentric, hierarchical conception of nature and humanity’s place in nature. We can see this view of things captured, for example, in Ernst Haeckel’s evocative 1879 illustration, Pedigree of Man.

We’ll begin the course (weeks 1-3) by noting how pervasive this picture is in ethical theory, and how important it is as an explanatory paradigm and as a guide to assigning value:

  • Week 1: Introductions and stage-setting, Ancient History

  • Week 2:  Great Chain DNA in 20th- and 21st-Century Ethical Theories

  • Week 3: The Great Chain's Problems (Darwin, Secularism, Climate Catastrophe)

The rest of our time together will be devoted to exploring alternatives. Our very first step in this process will be to consider the question of methods:

  • Week 4: Methodology

As we'll see, the methodology and values of analytic philosophy are themselves informed by the anthropocentric hierarchy we are here to question. How might philosophers operating within the analytic thought tradition responsibly draw on deeply embedded structural features of very different traditions? Are there reliable methods to employ, to be sure we learn from and build on, rather than appropriate or misconstrue, value paradigms other than the one within which we currently operate? What might philosophizing look like if it were, say, ecocentric, or connections- or systems-based? We'll use UTK Professor Lisa King's work on Rhetorical Sovereignty and Rhetorical Alliance and my work on the practical applications of the interpretive notion of charity as the foundation of a collaborative whole-class project: developing a working model of philosophical methodology that is anti-hierarchical and anti-exceptionalist.

During the remaining 10 weeks of the semester, we will use the methods we've provisionally developed, revising them as we go, to explore a series of alternatives to anthropocentric hierarchy 1) as a view of nature and 2) as it appears in ethical theory. This portion of the course is open-ended and subject to change as we discover which approaches interest us and which seem most fruitful.

Weeks 5 - 14: Connections- and Systems-Shaped Indigenous Cosmologies and Ethics; Land- and Country-Based Indigenous Cosmologies and Ethics; Feminine Cosmologies and Ethics; Panpsychism and Animism; "Ecosophy" (Ecosystem-based thinking) and ecological root values (sustainability, self-realization, etc.); Monism (Buddhism, Parmenides, Spinoza), ...?; Erasing the "Fact/Value Distinction", Inverting "thin" and "thick" value concepts, and other in-theory transformations. Throughout the semester I will share texts and resources with you that we will not cover, to give you a sense of what else is out there related to these themes.